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Before the recent memories of Kalamazoo fade from medievalist memory, you should have a look at Geoffrey Chaucer's"To Kalamazoo, wyth Love." It includes some of"GALFRIDUS CHAUCERES LYNES OF PICKE-VPPE." I rather liked this one:"Ich loved thy papere, but yt wolde looke much better yscattred across the floore of myn rentede dorme roome at dawne."
At ClioWeb, Jeremy Boggs has a roundup of recent posts by historians about their experience with Wikipedia.
Here is Le Monde's English translation of Mahmood Ahmadi-Najad's letter to President George Bush and AP's translation for comparison. For good measure, here is the Farsi original. Juan Cole says that Ahmadi-Najad is"a crank" and that much of the letter, in translation or the original or both, makes no sense. But Tony Karon makes the more important point that Ahmadi-Najad doesn't speak for the regime that actually rules Iran and it has a negotiating position that could leave the United States isolated in international opinion. Thanks to Caleb McDaniel for the tip.
Finally, a few words about the pressing boob issue: I've said it before [and taken my licks for it]. I really don't think that your boobs belong on your blog. How do I get to that conclusion? a) Boobs are wonderful things and it's great to be comfortable with your body. b) Blogging is a wonderful opportunity to display intellect and talent. and c) You ought to be as free as possible to do with it what you wish, including displaying your boobs, if you really want to. But: a) Intelligent people will be discrete in a public space. b) Do you really want to open a public discussion about whether your boobs impressed a hiring committee? Or, so depressed it that you didn't get the job? and c) Do you really want your students tittering, if you will, about your boobs? Now, you can substitute pecks and abs or your penis wherever boobs appears in that series of statements and questions. I don't think that pecks and abs or your penis belong on a serious academic blog. See here: on the experience of a male graduate student in history, who used his blog to brag and speculate about the adequacy of his penis (scroll down), and was encouraged in doing so, btw, by Bitch Ph.d. Use intelligent discretion, for goodness sake!
Having said all that, I agree with MargaretSoltan and Christopher Newman that the more pressing issue is: why is it that what H. L. Mencken called the"booboisie" or"boobus americanus" has so invaded and eroded American higher education that we even spend our time on such things?
For what it's worth, Hugo, I was thinking about you when I posted this. I knew that you had such photographs on your blog. My recollection was that you had taken some of them down because you thought that they were a bit narcissistic. You can certainly correct me about that if I am wrong. What did concern me was the example that might be set for young academics who are on the market. Your position is secure. You're not likely to be hired or fired because of the adequacy or inadequacy of your abs. When a young academic person puts such photographs on their blog: a) they lose control over how other people use or refer to them; b) they leave themselves open to questions about what, if any, role the appeal of their body may have had in any hiring decision; and c) the pictures invite their students to comment about the prof's body. That, it seems to me, is a series of problems that a job-insecure young academic person may well want to avoid.
Hugo Schwyzer -
5/13/2006
FWIW, as one whose chest does appear on his blog, I'm not sure either Diana or I are putting up "serious academic blogs." When you have an eponymous blog, as we both do, we put up material that relates to all aspects of our life. That means family photos as well as philosophical meditations -- it includes both carefully crafted prose and sloppy rants. It is, in a rather real sense, naked.
Oscar Chamberlain -
5/12/2006
That's a hoot!
Thanks for the link
PS My apologies if it turns out that hoot is the singular form of hooters.
Sharon Howard -
5/12/2006
By some strange coincidence, the good folks at Making Light are holding their own conversation about tits right now. Sorry, but it's much more fun on a Friday afternoon...
Ralph E. Luker -
5/12/2006
Virtually everyone who's commented has agreed that Diana Blaine has a right to post whatever she wants to on her blog and that the university did the right thing in defending her freedom to do so.
My point simply is that a young academic person ought to be discrete about what he or she posts because it is public and can have an impact on that person's career. I'd say that's as true for the text of what Blaine publishes as it is for the photographs, perhaps even more so. I'd say that the University ought to be somewhat embarrassed for having hired such a lame writer to teach young people how to write.
Timothy James Burke -
5/12/2006
Look, I agree with most of the people who've read the blog that it's pretty self-absorbed and air-headed even by blogging standards, and that's saying something.
The photos? Seriously, who gives a crap? They're flickr photos from her personal life. One of them is from Burning Man, for god's sake, where the entire point is to do strange stuff. If putting your breasts in a flickr photo in a private blog is a blow to academic professionalism, then every other photo than any of us have every posted that comes out of our lives is a blow to professionalism. You should be writing nasty posts about me putting up photos of woodwork, or my garden, or my daughter. The photos in question are totally asexual.
John Marshall Robinson -
5/11/2006
Hah. That Chaucer take was hilarious.
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
5/11/2006
Yes, someone just emailed that to me. I read about the media contact originally on insidehighered.com, which is my source for the letter-to-the-editor angle of the story as well. Honestly, I'm not sure what the truth is on that question.
Apparently, according to the person who emailed me, the student group has a blog, where they reproduced the topless photos, whose sole purpose is to get Blaine fired.
I'm actually getting pretty sick of the whole story, mostly because there doesn't appear to be any "there" there. Blaine won't lose her job, the students will graduate and get jobs, and all will blow over. I was merely interested in why students would think that topless photos were so darn damaging, and in my comments and in my own post I've tried to explore why Americans as a society are so freaked out by breasts. That's all.
Christopher Newman -
5/11/2006
I haven't researched this story, of course, but, for what it's worth, apparently the students claim they did *not* contact the media. According to their story, they have a blog on which they had responded to Blaine's editorial and on which they had linked to the topless photos of her. They claim they were contacted by the media, not the other way around. I have no idea whether they're being truthful about that, though.
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
5/11/2006
My problem with the students is that rather than engaging the ideas in Blaine's letter to the editor (which is what started this fiasco, not her blog) either by writing their own or by visiting her in office hours, or by emailing her, or by commenting on her blog, instead they contacted a media outlet with something they found sensational, I suppose in hopes of either a) shaming her or b)getting her fired or c) both. I do think that had the pictures not been there (and boy, do you have to hunt to find them) those students would have tried to find something else to hang her with. But, the students decided to attack Blaine's breasts instead of her ideas, which seems just silly to me, as well as suggestive of larger social issues.
Blaine has refused to be shamed, which is good, and USC won't fire her, which is also good.
And Christopher, yes, I would support the male professor putting whatever he wants on his blog. I would hope that if your hypothetical professor wrote a letter to the editor I didn't like to a campus newspaper, I would respond with an argument, and not with topless pictures from his blog. If he kept those comments to his blog, and I didn't like them, I would probably just ignore them.
Which is actually what I would suggest that folks who don't like Blaine's blog do: ignore it. I simply see larger social issues about women's bodies at play here, which is what my comments have been about.
Ralph E. Luker -
5/11/2006
Rebecca, I'd add to what Chris has said that _it was Blaine_, _not the conservative students_, who put her breasts in the public arena. Once she put them in the public arena, she lost control over what other people _might_ do with those images. All the more reason, I think, to act with discretion.
Christopher Newman -
5/11/2006
I'm with Ralph in that I'm not offended by breasts on the blog, and in that I think the University has no choice but to defend her. I would hope, however, that they'd be at least slightly embarrassed about having to defend her, given the poor quality of her writing and reasoning -- and considering the weirdly Miss-Jean-Brodie-esque tone of the blog.
I'm curious, Rebecca, whether you would have the same reaction if a male professor had a personal blog or website on which he had posted topless Playboy-style pictures of women, and on which he expressed "pro-male" or anti-feminist (though not "abusive") viewpoints. What if a group of female students complained about the blog or the pictures? I'm assuming you would defend the male professor just as you defend Dr. Diana. Would you have more sympathy for the students, though?
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
5/11/2006
I did read what you wrote, Ralph. I suppose where we disagree is that I don't think breasts on a blog are necessarily inappropriate. You do. Fine, fair enough.
You're right, and I should have corrected Hugo on this yesterday. I think overall it's better if we refer to human body parts, especially ones that cause discomfort, by their right and proper names.
My original comment was only to draw attention to the fact that no one would ever have noticed Blaine's breast photos, among the several hundred on her blog, if a group of male students had decided that it would be better to shame Blaine's breasts than to actually engage her letter to the editor about rape. One can certainly argue that her writing is terrible and that she shouldn't be teaching college; I haven't formed an opinion about that but you have, Ralph, and that's OK by me. I do think we should also ask, though, what's wrong with these students that they thought, great, let's put Blaine's breasts on T.V., because we didn't like her argument.
My comment had less to do with your opinion than the state of a culture that uses an exposed breast to shame a woman whose ideas about rape a few college boys didn't agree with.
Ralph E. Luker -
5/11/2006
I notice that you didn't correct Hugo for his use of the word "boobs," but I get corrected no matter what word I use. You really don't seem to read what I write. I said that a person should be free to put her breasts on her blog if she really wants to; and I said that I thought the University had no choice but to defend her. That having been said, I think it is very poor advice to young academics to recommend that they engage in this kind of self-satisfaction in public. Whether you like it or not, it cannot weigh in their favor when critical decisions are made and it may weigh against them. You really ought to look at what has happened to people like the unnamed male grad student in history to whom I referred and to the woman at Arizona State. You personally are extra-ordinarily discrete, but if others act on what you argue they might have to pay consequences that you never will.
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
5/11/2006
I do believe what I wrote Ralph, but thanks for the compliment!
I have not read much of Blaine's blog, but I didn't find her writing "vapid." It just covered topics I don't find myself interested in, so it's unlikely I'll become a regular reader. I prefer Bitch, Ph.D., and Redneck Mother.
I don't think breasts (breasts, not boobs) are indiscreet. Only our cultural hang-ups make them so. A women's studies and gender studies professor does have a professional interest in breasts and representations of breasts.
But, even if you feel breast photos are indiscreet and inappropriate, it is Blaine's blog. As far as I'm concerned, she can put whatever she wants on it.
I don't put breast pictures on my blog, that's true. But I did just write A Mammary Manifesto.
Ralph E. Luker -
5/11/2006
As a matter of fact, Rebecca, I suspect that you don't even believe what you are saying here because I suspect that you have the slightest intention of following Blaine's example. In fact, already you don't, not only because you don't feature your boobs on your blog, but because you can write and you've got lots of clear ideas.
Ralph E. Luker -
5/11/2006
Rebecca, There's much that you say here that I don't disagree with. I can't say that I'm "bothered" by the pictures of her breasts. They don't much interest me. My point was and is that such pictures (I included male body parts in what I wrote) are indiscrete and serve no professional interest. As a matter of fact, Hugo has taken down some of his photographs that he thought were too narcissistic. I doubt that you have read much of Blaine's blog because you, too, would have found it vapid to near hilariously so. It just screams: this is not someone who ought to be teaching American college students _anything_: not writing, because she doesn't write well herself; not gender studies, because she has no clear ideas about gender herself. A "philosopher" she calls herself! What a joke! She's narcissistic enough, but there's more required of a teacher than a thorough-going self-absorption.
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
5/11/2006
...we all seem to be missing is that students alerted the media to Dr Diana's breast pictures because they didn't like a letter to the editor she wrote in the USC student paper about collective male responsibility for rape. You may agree or disagree with Dr. Diana's position, but it seems to me that the students in question have decided to try to punish Dr. Diana for having breasts rather than engaging her in a debate about rape.
Why are you bothered by her topless pictures, Ralph? You actually have to search for them in her flickr files. It's not as if you accidently surf to her blog and see...breasts.
By making her topless pictures available, Dr Diana is making a larger point. She's not making it as elegantly as everyone seems to prefer, but she is making it: that is, breasts have become oversexualized in our society, so much so that the presence of breasts on the internet can set off a media firestorm. Guess what, guys: breasts are not sexual organs. They're meant to feed babies. That's it. The same mindset that scandalized USC students (how dare she put her breasts on her blog?) is also the mindset that prevents women from being able to nurse in public, even discreetly, and that also makes women have to beg for private places at work to pump if they need to. Something tells me that if we were all more comfortable with breasts, and what they are actually meant to do, this wouldn't be such a problem.
Hugo said it best yesterday, folks. We can see topless pictures of Hugo on his blog, but we're offended by pictures of topless Dr Diana on her blog. But why? It doesn't make any sense to me, either, Hugo.
Alan Allport -
5/11/2006
The worst part of this affair, judging by her blog, is that it has reinforced Dr. Diana's already tiresome self-absorption.
